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AJ Frena’s Wild

AJ Frena

AJ Frena’s art is a wild kingdom of animals and humanity, a tumultuous and invigorating realm. Detailed and concisely rendered in both tooth and nail, his imagery is composed with a keen sense of design, empathy and admiration of the animal in us all.

“I try to be careful not to romanticize nature in my art, as I’m of the belief that the difference between animals and us is the ability for human beings to choose how they approach survival. Nature and animals are inherently violent and disharmonious in their original state, not unlike human beings. Nature however lacks the gift of choice, which is invaluable to our lives and experience. Despite all the awful things that people do to one another, this difference is incredible and not something that I believe should be given up for the sake of nature.

When I use animals as symbols, I am a lot more interested in studying how people project human characteristics onto nature than any possibility of people learning directly from them. I am really fascinated by mythology, fables and bestiaries– stories where animals are given distinctively human characteristics to represent different aspects of human vice, goodness and experience. My art attempts to reflect this interest.” – (Via Empty Kingdom)